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Atlas / NTSB / DEN93FA021

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DEN93FA021

1992-12-30 AURORA, Colorado, United States Airport · FTG Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

COLLISION WITH TERRAIN WHEN THE PILOT INADVERTENTLY FLEW INTO FOG WHILE CONDUCTING A VISUAL APPROACH. FACTORS WERE: INACCURATE WEATHER EVALUATION BY THE PILOT AND LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH THE GEOGRAPHIC AREA.

Factual narrative

WHILE ON A CROSS COUNTRY FLIGHT INTO AN UNCONTROLLED AIRPORT, AT WHICH THE WEATHER WAS IFR DUE TO FOG, THE NON INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT INADVERTENTLY DESCENDED INTO THE GROUND DURING BASE TURN ON APPROACH WHEN HE ENTERED THE FOG. TERRAIN WAS AN OPEN SNOW COVERED FIELD. THIS WAS THE PILOT'S FIRST FLIGHT INTO THIS AIRPORT. THE NEAREST REPORTING STATION AT THE TIME WAS DENVER STAPLETON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WHICH WAS REPORTING 6,000 FOOT SCATTERED CLOUDS. THIS INFORMATION WAS GIVEN TO THE PILOT BY DENVER APPROACH CONTROL. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1992_DEN93FA021.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗